PALABRA PURA Recap: Emma and Jacob

NOVENA PODEROSA

by Emma Trelles:

Fill the glass; light the wick,
prick three drops upon the sheet.

Honor the dead with gardenias,
stuff throats with the scent of forgiveness.

Honor the living with seasoned timber,
there is reckoning found in patience and plank. [...]

from Little Spells (Goss 183, 2008)

Emma was joined by Jacob Saenz last Wednesday, on June 17 at Decima Musa in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. We had a good-sized, attentive crowd. Emma sold books. It was the first time I'd had the pleasure of hearing her. I'd heard Jacob at the One Poem Festival at the JAZZ SHOWCASE last February in Chicago, but never a whole set by him. Both were excellent readers (which isn't always the case). Jacob read some great"zombie" poems! The following pictures are from Trelles' Facebook album. I only lament there wasn't one of her reading. I'll have to track one down.

One of the things the Guild Complex is working on for their website, and hopefully they'll get it up and running soon, are audio files from these readings. We've been recording them, but they still need to be edited, etc. The goal, really, is to make PALABRA PURA more of a national presence, through the web. We've come to think of the series as being a part of our literary community and thus want to do what we can to bring it to online audiences. It's the next step for the series, which is now in its fourth season. Funding for our 2010 season is off to a good start with a modest award from the National Endowment for the Arts and one from the Joyce Foundation. It's a welcome boost as we move forward.

Jacob Saenz

I'm holding Little Spells, sitting beside our visiting poet, who flew in from Miami.

Good crowd that night, though it was still light when we started.

Los Poetas

*

July 15, 2009,

PALABRA PURA

presents

Javier Huerta & Luis Valadez